Jabra has just formally announced the Jabra Sport Pulse Wireless Earbuds, a new offering that has a built-in biometric heart rate monitor. It will feature real-time coaching, sound in Dolby Digital and will also have a companion app on the Play Store.

With this piece, Jabra continues their surge into the health and fitness wearables space. It will cost $199.

Take training to the next level and get the ultimate wireless workout with Jabra Sport Pulse Wireless, new earbuds â€“ and an all-in-one training solution with Jabra Sport Life application – announced by Jabra today. Combining an in-ear biometric heart rate monitor, immersive DolbyÂ® Digital sound and real-time voice coaching, Jabra Sport Pulse Wireless will inspire runners, cyclists, and exercisers of all types to beat their best performance. The Jabra Sport Pulse Wireless is currently available for pre-order on Jabra.com/sportpulse and will be available at Best Buy retail stores and BestBuy.com beginning late September.

Built-in Heart Rate Monitor and App: The Smart Way to Train

With a built-in intelligent app – Jabra Sport Life – exercisers will get the most out of their Sport Pulse Wireless earbuds, helping them plan, track and evaluate each workout. It has never been so easy to test fitness levels and aerobic capacity, adjust heart rate zone levels to optimize training, and set goals based on distance, time or calories burned.

â€œJabra has a strong legacy of innovation in wearable technology and Sport Pulse Wireless is no exception,â€ said Darcy Clarkson, Senior Vice President at Jabra Consumer Solutions. â€œThese are worldâ€™s first earbuds to have a built-in heart rate monitor, heralding the next generation of intelligent audio solutions for fitness fanatics that allows our customers to work out with the confidence of medical precision.â€

Premium Sound, Completely Wireless Workout

Music is a big part of many peoplesâ€™ workouts, and the Sport Pulse Wireless is designed to fire up exercisers by listening to their favorite songs with a customizable sound experience and powerful, purpose-built speakers that deliver world-class wireless music performance. Personalised audio coaching provides feedback on your workout every step of the way, enabling music and training to be controlled from a single app.

As Tough as You Are

Encased in carbon fiber, Sport Pulse Wireless earbuds are built to take a pounding and are sweat- and storm-proof, so there is no excuse for missing a training session. Ergonomic Audio Response ScienceTM technology ensures a secure, comfortable fit thatâ€™s lightweight in a compact design so nothing gets in the way of exceeding training goals.

Track Workouts with Medical Accuracy

Jabra commissioned Campbell University in North Carolina to independently verify the performance of the heart rate monitor technology for fitness and active usage. The comprehensive trial included runners on a treadmill and simultaneously tested Jabra Sport Pulse Wireless against a medical electrocardiogram (ECG) machine. The results clearly showed an extraordinary accuracy with a 99.2% correlation, proving the advanced nature of Jabraâ€™s in-ear heart rate technology.

â€œJabra has created a single device that can provide accurate biometric information, both visually and audibly, within a piece of equipment that most exercisers are wearing anyway and eliminate the need for excess equipment,â€ concluded Jennifer Bunn, PhD, Assistant Professor and Director at Campbell University in the Department of Exercise Science.

The Next Generation of Jabraâ€™s Sports Line

Sport Pulse Wireless earbuds continue Jabraâ€™s tradition of global â€˜firsts,â€™ building on a solid heritage of superior sound engineering. The earbuds represent the next generation in Jabraâ€™s family of wireless audio solutions for people who are serious about exercising, complementing the award-winning Jabra Sport Rox Wireless and Sport Wireless+ earbuds.

The smartwatch space is one of those segments that one can’t afford to glance away from; when one looks back, it might be disconcerting to see the new models and proofs of concept that pop out seemingly every other second. Some companies, like Sony, are already building multiple iterations at this point. We just got the opportunity to formally look at the SmartWatch 2 a few months out of the gate, and it is an interesting ride, to be sure.

The stock hardware has improved… not that the original was lousy. The stock rubber straps didn’t exactly proclaim luxury, but the ability to get other set was a bit calming. The watch piece itself has Sony stylings all over it, with the sleek chromish angling, end-to-end screen use and covered micro-USB port on the left side.. The square face is punctuated by a the “SONY” brand name at the top and three virtual buttons (back, home and three-dot menu) at the bottom. Rounding out the look is a chrome push button on the right, that looks like a winder on a “regular” watch.

The device is light enough to be used comfortably; I wear a business/sports watch socially, and this one feels even more natural on the wrist in comparison, so much so that it’s easy to forget. When on and in its rest state, the default watch face has dark undertones, and hitting the on button lights the face up further, and activated the home button. Anyone familiar with Android devices (or smartphones in general) should find the menu quite intuitive; tapping the home button opens up the menu, where installed apps and the settings menu reside.

Pairing the phone via bluetooth is easy, and involves (in my case) the installation of two apps from the Play Store. After this, the user has access to the specially crafted apps available… stuff like Gmail, music and Twitter can be installed via the companion Android app.

In practice, the gadget works as one would expect. After receiving an email on my phone, a notification vibrates through the phone and a summary is posted on the screen. The notification isn’t too startling, but it isn’t shy either. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to remove installed apps (via the device). I did like the ability to customize watch faces and bands.

The biggest barrier to adoption, is the same one facing most smartwatches in this still niche space: need. For all the cool (geek?) factor, the need for a smartphone within range might slightly curb the mobile benefits. I’d also like to see the consolidation of companion apps needed. Of course, there is no such thing like too many apps; while there are quite a few to choose from, like Agent Smith in the Matrix series, we can always do with “more.”

Still, I’d consider the SSW2 to be one of the best items in a sector that still needs some refining overall, and that Sony is positioning itself well to reap future benefits.